California convention pics

On the left here (as it should be) a poster at one of the booths honoring the father of the farmworker labor movement. My beloved esposa just told me a story last night about doing a long walk with the UFW and Cesar. I didn't think I could love her anymore but, lo and behold, there was another corner of my heart filled with Jo love.










From my first Obama rally, the signs, the people, the hope.






















And what is a convention without famous politicians? Boring! So here we have the fabulous Kamala Harris the City attorney for San Francisco. Go on girl, tell me about our man Obama.







Cesar always advocated for equality for all. He understood social justice didn't mean equality for farmworkers but the gay, lesbian, Latino, transgendered , poor person who had lost hope, lost their family and lost hope they would find someone to share their life with.

But with Barack Obama as president, all of this is possible and more. The nightmare is almost over.

Si se puede, yes we can.
And we will!

Democratic convention Calif style

I spent the majority of the weekend at the California Democratic convention. Here are just a few snapshots of what I saw and heard there.

• The LGBT caucus was very well attended. Cecilia Chung of San Francisco did a great job of organizing and giving candidates a chance to speak for a nanosecond to the crowd. I didn't go in since I was working at the front desk to get everyone paid up and into the room. And I had a chair which will always be a priority. Nice to see lots of folks from around the state and the crowd was evenly divided between Obama and Hillay. What a surprise.
• The big race between Mark Leno and Carole Migden for state Senate got very wild this weekend. Well actually I believe that Migden proved that she has gone nuts. At the women's caucus on Friday night she just went crazy. She was screaming, insulting the Obama staff, saying very ugly things about them. Like calling them ugly and fat! People who were there were so shocked and it became the talk of the convention. When she entered the LGBT caucus, it w as staged to look like the queen of all was entering the room. People were in front and in back of her, carrying Migden signs on sticks so she looked like she had an entourage. I thought it was kind of gross myself.
  
• I went to my first Obama rally. Great fun and great energy. My friend from New Mexico, Raul Alvillar, is Obama's western field director. He was the MC of the rally and introduced Steve Westly, a former gubernatorial candidate. He also had on hand the new speaker of the house, Karen Bass, SF city attorney Kamala Harris. What a hottie she is! Anyway, it was wonderful to b on board with all of this.
  
• I am now officially looped in as the national Latino LGBT co-chair with Andres Duque. That will be rolled out this week. then they are hooking me up with the Latino outreach group too. I will be on the national conference calls from here on out. Yeah baby! I am so excited and hopeful. But even more important, I get to work on this campaign to change this country. The end of the nightmare is coming soon.
• Why are the Larouche people always at Democratic events? They are nuts but they sing well. I got sucked in to the their booth because they had, what I thought, was an interesting name, something Roosevelt club. So I wandered up and some guy was on a rant, just talking to hear himself. He was saying he is against abortion so I said, "Well don't have one" and walked away from those two.
  
• I really get people overload at these things. Especially at an event like this where everyone thinks they are very important. So no one looks where they are going, have no grasp of the fact they are blocking entire throughways, I don;t care who they are talking to on the phone despite how loud they talk and when I say excuse me, I really mean get the fuck out of my way.
• I skipped seeing Bill Clinton today. One of Jo's colleagues came over this afternoon after the speech and said he fell asleep during Clinton's speech. I gave my pass to my neighbor so he could take pics and see the big ma up close. He was thrilled and I was happy open the door for him.

That's it for now. When I remember more I will post more. Pictures will be up tomorrow.

Gay civil unions en Mexico

The Governator is in Mexico City on the same day the Mexico City assembly passed legislation allowing gay civil unions. Perfect. No fall of a centuries old civilization or riots in the streets, just equality. How ironic, how perfect. How unhappy the Catholic Church is. Ahh too bad.

Also there is election data about how Latinos paid back the ReThugs for all the talk about immigration. Talk about us like dogs, we'll vote for Dems. According to USA Today:

Republican gains among Hispanic voters evaporated in Tuesday's election, and some party leaders are blaming harsh rhetoric on immigration for the reversal.

Duh.

People on this side of the border don't know a lot about Mexico. As Ms Marinucci wrote today, Mexicans on el otro lado, the other side, hate the Governator. There are plenty of reason from that perspective including vetoing driver's licenses for undocumented people.

When I was working with AIDS organizations and LGBT groups in Ciudad Juarez on the border, I would give them big time props for the work they could accomplish in a small amount of time. One group, in a two month period, got their own radio show, got the Catholic Church to do a gay mass, started their own newsletter and were invited to sit on the Huma Rights Commission for the state of Chihuahua.

But yet, politicians have ignored the Latino community and do so at their own risk. Kerry spent a very small amount on Spanish language advertising in '04. His ads, at least in New Mexico, talked about Haliburton.

Dude, I have news for you. When a person is working 2 or 3 jobs, they don't give a shit about Haliburton.

On the other hand, Bush's ads talked about family values in the Latino community. Guess who won New Mexico?

So while Bush may have made some in roads in the past, it's all dust now. We don't forget nor should we. Ignore us at your own peril.

In the meantime, I guess it is time to get civil in Mexico City.

Que viva Mexico, viva.